It's 10am, and as is usual for me on a sea day, I'm sprawled on a deck chair on the 3rd deck looking out at the ocean. People stride by me doing their daily walk around the ship (3.5 circuits equals a mile), and I realize to my delight that I know many of the people walking past me.
Not "know" as in "can put names and histories to", but know as in "have some specific knowledge about that differentiates this person from the other 999 passengers on this trip."
The woman in turquoise Bermuda shorts who strides along so purposefully, for instance: yesterday afternoon as I waited for the daily Bingo game to begin, she and her husband were finishing up the ballroom dancing class in mambo. I remember her because she was clearly having such a great time with it, dancing with her whole body, a satisfied, energetic smile on her face.
And this Japanese man in shorts and a grayish T-shirt: he was part of a group I had lunch with a couple weeks ago. Whoever introduced us laughed about always getting his name wrong, so now I'm not sure whether his name is Terry and she always calls him Mike, or his name is Mike and she always calls him Terry. He has a shy look, as if he would be too polite to correct her either way.
And this long-legged man with the intelligent, academic face: he and his wife are birders and helped confirm that the flocks of flying things at sunset in Cairns were fruit bats, not crows.
What has it been, just about two months. We're officially halfway done, more than 20,000 miles behind us and less than that to go. In half an hour, I get my pre-briefing for the six-day China overland that starts day after tomorrow. The sea is very calm, I almost won't need my sea-legs when I stand up to go to it.
Couple walks by talking in Dutch, followed by two Japanese guys in black who are somehow kind of scary -- maybe it's the expensive dark glasses and precise haircuts. They will probably turn out to be botanists on board to give lectures on the flora of Indonesia.
I gotta get to the pre-briefing.
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